


Red Ashes

by iwill_rocc_you



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Freeform, Little plot, Liz is fed up and Red is as collected as ever, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwill_rocc_you/pseuds/iwill_rocc_you
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzie sits in Red's jet with a file in her hand but can't focus with all the thoughts of her childhood pressing on her- she confronts Red, and hopes for a final truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Ashes

Fire and smoke, she remembered it well. Flashes, like heat across her skin, and if she stood still long enough, closed her eyes long enough, and focused, really focused… she could see the flames engulfing her life. She could feel the heat, smell the smoke, and feel the pain of it filling her lungs, stinging her eyes. Her little stuffed rabbit, how innocent it looked charred in the foreground of her entire life being eaten away. 

 

How Red knew… she couldn’t imagine. She had tucked that part of her life so far away, so deep, even she could hardly remember it. Then how was it when she looked at Red, in those fleeting moments of burning wall paper and charred rabbits, those visions- that she could feel his presence there? How was it that every time she glanced at Red out the corner of her eye, she could see flames? 

And still she didn’t want to know if he was there in the flames with her, that detail didn’t matter to her. All the pieces were there, hints and vague statements from Red making her head spin with confusion, and the mute exhilaration of thinking that maybe her father wasn’t dead like she had believed for all these years. 

There was a question burning inside of her, one that he refused to answer with just one, simple truth. Was Red her father?

 

“You’re not very talkative today, Agent Keen.” Red’s voice was as dryly amused and composed as always, and Elizabeth was pulled from her thoughts as quickly as they had come. 

“Sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t really. She didn’t owe Red a decent conversation, (though polite rule dictated that she at least try, her thoughts were distracting). She looked through the papers in front of her, words swimming, the photo of the blacklister in the upper right hand corner staring at her, demanding her attention. 

Red looked at her, in that way he always seems to look at her and read right through her, and Elizabeth turned her head purposefully. His voice had softened then, a tool he used to calm her, which (infuriating as it was), always seemed to work on her like flipping a switch. “Lizzie…” Her name sounded like a prayer on a sinner’s lips, and she could see that swinging charred rabbit like a pendulum and felt like she was trapped in a twisted version of Alice in Wonderland- and Red had pushed her down the hole. 

“I don’t like this guy.” She had hardly read the report. Elizabeth could remember long nights, Tom still sleeping in bed, four o’clock in the morning, sitting at the dining room table and pouring herself over files, memorizing every word, every piece of evidence so she could figure out who she was looking for. Now Liz could hardly even eat at her dining room table, let alone dedicate her entire life to analyzing pieces of paper when her past was on fire. 

She threw the report down on the surface of one of Red’s jet tables and folded her arms across her chest. It was a comfort not to have the paper in her hands anymore, and she leaned back against the expensive leather seat with a soft sigh through her nose. 

“We both know that’s not the reason you’re upset, Lizzie.” Calmly, deliberately, Red put down his copy of the file and leaned back in his own chair. “Tell me what’s on your mind.” 

She looked to Red with blue eyes hard, cold slabs of rounded ice they pierced like searing daggers. “You’re not my therapist, Red.” 

“No,” he admitted then, still as calm as ever, “Though talking to me might do you some good- progress with that stiff necked lady the bureau assigned to you is hardly progress.” 

“God, is there nothing sacred to you?” 

His trademark smile came to his lips, the small turn at the corners of his mouth as he tilted his head so very slightly that exhibited that closed-off nature Elizabeth was beginning to resent. “Everything about you is sacred to me, Lizzie. Including your sessions with your therapists.”

Her chest was tight, and she couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. She thought of her father, her husband… Red had, in a complicated and premeditated (she was convinced it was premeditated) sweep, destroyed her relationships with the two most prominent male figures in her life and stepped in as both. Red had become both father and husband to her in the short months that she had known him- and it made Liz feel sick to her stomach. 

Then the words left his mouth and Elizabeth felt like the plane had dropped a hundred feet, “Tell me about the fire.” 

Her fingers were touching her scar. They had unconsciously moved from their crossed position and lay in her lap, tucked between her thighs, and she was rubbing slow circles around the raised flesh where her skin was melted and disfigured permanently. She hadn’t even thought about it, she rarely does anymore. Of course Red had noticed, there was nothing he didn’t notice. 

Her voice was a little more than a murmur, “I don’t want to talk about that with you.” 

“Oh, but you do.” Again, he read her like a book, and Elizabeth felt exposed and vulnerable- Red had only said four words to her and she felt like she was being interrogated. “You mention it only briefly in your sessions with your therapist- don’t you think it’s time to talk about it?” 

“What is there to say, Red? I was four. There was a fire. I got burned, I got out. That’s it.” 

Red looked at her, and Elizabeth could only hold his gaze for a few moments before she felt sick again. She stood from her seat, in her quick movement the table was knocked by her hips and the report that was sitting so neatly in it’s yellow folder got sent to the jet floor, pieces of paper sliding across the carpet and Elizabeth gritted her teeth. 

Seeing the mess on the floor Red stood up as well and as Elizabeth kneeled to collect the paper, so did Red. She didn’t look at him, and almost wanted to swat him away or stand up and walk in the opposite direction- anywhere where she could breathe without Red looming over her shoulder, constantly being close to her, holding her elbow, a hand on the small of her back, all those little touches that burned her, but at the same time made her feel so safe she could have tackled the world if only he was near enough to touch. 

They reached for the last piece of paper together, but instead of grabbing for the paper Red wrapped his fingers around her hand, his ever-knowing eyes the color of soft gray slate, looking as tender and sad as ever. Elizabeth froze, and she could see that sad expression seared into her brain, struck to the bone to see Red finally open, looking at her with the most honest expression she had ever seen on his features. 

“It’s been eating you away, Elizabeth.” The use of her full name stunned her ever further, and she blinked in surprise before watching Red lift her hand up, wrist up to show her scar in the light. His touch was dry and warm, his fingers held a strong but gentle grip on her. She could pull her hand away at any time she wanted, and she knew that he wanted her to know that. 

Though she didn’t pull her hand away, no matter how light his hold was- if anything she only wanted him to hold her tighter. 

“I know you’ve been thinking about it, Lizzie. You have this expression that comes to your face, an expression so sad with longing it could only mean you’re thinking of one thing.” He was going to tell her. She could see it,feel it in the air like the quiet crackle of electricity before thunder. 

Her fingers closed around his, clutching his hand as if she was clinging to life, “I’m tired of living a lie, Red. For once… just once…,” Her voice had become pleading, and she couldn’t remember the last time she was this vulnerable, this desperate for something, “I want the truth.” 

And then the honesty was gone from his face, in a split moment Liz could count the number of muscles that closed up his expression. He looked at her then with his eyes the color of a gray, distant storm over a choppy sea, his mouth a thin straight line as he less than looked at her, but more completely dissected her. Elizabeth could see him thinking, could see him reviewing his options in the cold way a criminal assessed all of the deals he could make to put the situation to his advantage. 

She loosened her fingers then, and felt sickly manipulated, falling right into his trap like a fool. She broke his gaze and looked away, anywhere but him, but it was difficult with his skin still touching hers, a constant reminder that he was still there, still invading her space, still present in her life. She moved to tear her hand away from him but his grip tightened and she couldn’t. She looked back at him quickly, eyes hard and her mouth tight with displeasure. Though there was a different expression on his face now, and Liz couldn’t quite place it. 

“Lizzie…” the sound of his voice was different now, the way her said her name like no time before and she found herself not fighting against him anymore. 

“What do you want from me, Red? You chase me down, turn my life upside down, and expect me to just roll over with it? Accept it and move on? My life is ruined because of you! And you can’t even tell me who you are, what you are to me!” 

“I can’t, Lizzie.” He shook his head softly, eyes moving down to her scar, where his thumb ran slowly over the skin and caressed it. “There are things…” He shook his head again, unable to continue. 

“Were you there in the fire, Red? Is that why you look so goddamn guilty when you look at me?” There were tears in her eyes, conjured by how angry she was getting at the man that had done all these things to her and wouldn’t even tell her why. 

He didn’t answer her, couldn’t. 

“Go to Hell. Let me go, Red.” 

He did as she asked, and she finally stood up from the floor. Red remained on his knees, looking at her shoes, deflated somehow. He seemed defeated, defeated by his own past, the past he refused to reveal to Elizabeth. 

“I love you, Lizzie.” His words were softly spoken, and she hardly heard them, but they made her freeze like he had screamed them at her. “That’s the only reason why I do the things I do. I will always, and have always, done them for you.” 

Her body felt like jelly then, and she almost didn’t want to hear him anymore. Then there was a small part of her, the little part in the back of her head that always knew that. 

“I was in the fire, Lizzie. But that’s all I can tell you.” He looked up at her, pleading with her with his eyes just as she had pleaded with him. “I can’t tell you anymore. If you know any more your life will be exponentially more dangerous. And I never want to hurt you, Lizzie. That was the opposite of what I’ve wanted from the start.” 

She didn’t move. Almost wished that if she stayed still long enough she would eventually melt away and wouldn’t have to deal with Red on his knees, pleading with her not to forsake him and forgive him for the things that he couldn’t tell her. 

He reached for her, and she let him touch her, knew that just like he anchored her, she anchored him. There was joint comfort from touching each other’s skin, there was a secret there, and she didn’t know what it was, but it was strong. 

He took her hand with the burn and held it like he was holding precious glass, careful not to break her. But she wouldn’t break, she was forged from the same fire he was. 

Reddington lifted her scar to his lips and pressed it against his mouth tenderly, closing his eyes and breathing softly, almost holding his breath. Liz’s mouth went dry as she looked down at him, worshipping her skin like she was his deity, a goddess on earth. 

His mouth was hot on the scar, and when Elizabeth closed her eyes she could see the fire in her childhood bedroom, and she could feel that same heat against her skin, breathing against her wrist and searing it. His tender kiss left a hot spot over her scar, and she knew that she was kissed by fire for a second time. 

“Red…”

“I just want to protect you, Elizabeth. I did it then, and I’m doing it now.”

The question left her mouth like a bullet, and just as a bullet it was piercing and couldn't be taken back. “Red, are you my father?” 

He blinked up at her. Once, twice, and there was that distant expression that came to his features, that sad looking coming into his eyes. Elizabeth remembered her melting doll. 

“No, Lizzie. I’m not your father. I never was.” 

The words from his lips was the official conclusion to Lizzie's fears. If he had been her father, it would have been okay. She would have forgiven him, hugged him, maybe even thanked him... but he wasn't even her blood. He was in the fire that destroyed her childhood, and he had turned himself into that same flame, burning through all the rest of her life.

Lizzie felt burned, she felt just as defeated as Red had looked, facing the most important battle of her life, and finding that Red had been the victor. She was a casualty of war, swept up in the criminal's delusions of truth and fairness. 

And still, that sick and frustrating feeling of relief had flooded her, like a floodgate that was finally opened and released, her scalp tingled at the knowledge that the man that had carved himself a special niche in her life wasn't her father, and that she didn't have to feel so terribly guilty and torn when she looked at him too long out of the corner of her eye; that she didn't have to feel so disgusting when he touched the sensitive spot on her back that gave her guilty shivers through her skin and nerves.

"Do you hate me, Lizzie?" 

She moved her blue eyes back to Red, on his knees in front of her and seeming to almost beg her without words to forgive him. He seemed to plead with her with his sad eyes, expression contorted into pain in preparation of her answer, preparation of her rejection and her contempt. 

There was a soft sigh that left her lips, looking at the fallen state of Red like witnessing the damnation of Lucifer from heaven, the most beautiful angel on his knees in front of her and waiting for her verdict. She was judge and executioner, and he was holding out his neck and passively accepting her guillotine- knowing that a death by her was the sweetest he would ever receive. 

"I don't hate you, Red." 

He seemed to relax at her words, and a small smile pulled at his lips. He was a man that narrowly escaped a nightmare, and he looked as grateful and humble as ever, still on his knees in front of Lizzie. 

And Lizzie had narrowly escaped falling in love with her father.

"Let's get back to work, Red. I won't think of the fire anymore, okay?" 

He looked up at her, still unmovable. Lizzie almost didn't want him to move. 

"You're right, Lizzie," he said finally. "Let's get back to work."

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Blacklist fanfic and I'm a little apprehensive to know if I captured the characters correctly, or if I'm looking too hard, or not enough. Let me know! :) <3


End file.
